Yep, he'd pretty much immediately become our best player. Odd not to want him at the club.
Isnt that the problem with Horwill though, on good money but hardly plays. If you pay top dollar for players, I would prefer someone who will play as much as possible.
I don't get really fixated on what players earn. He'd be playing enough games to keep the fans happy, injury permitting, and they'd be the more important games.
I'm not aware that anyone wanted to off-load Robshaw, Brown, Care or Marler when they were England regulars so I'm not sure why it would be a burden to have Itoje.
If true that Itoje would want around 800k (also the numbers roughly rumoured for Lawes) it would have a big impact on what is left to spend on the rest of the squad. Different if he was Marquee of course, but he wont be. If Itoje were to come in on the same money as someone like Horwill, I would be all for it.
Dont get me wrong, I would love to see Itoje play for Quins, but for how much I am guessing (yep, only a guess) it would cost, it would be a huge chunk of cap for a player that would not be available for a fair bit of rugby. Would that kind of money not be better spent on a couple of top class SA/NZ etc locks that would also be available all season.
Well to be fair I think any club would be stupid to pay 800k to any player. Lord knows if that's what he could command in England or if he or his agent are that greedy. Maybe it's just daft press speculation.
Apparently (only a rumour I admit) that is what Sale are willing to pay Lawes also!!!
My understanding is that Itoje signed a new contract before the beginning of this season and unless we are starting to go down the route of football, and contracts are more or less disregarded, i.e. players move on before the end of their current contracts, he isn't available. Mind you, the majority of players are now represented by three large football agencies, and so it is only a matter of time, unless rugby clubs stick to their guns and refuse to sign a player until they are at the end of their contract, before we start having rugby transfer fees. My understanding of what he is being paid is similar to that of HonkyTonk, i.e. if he were to be available and we were to sign him, he would take up more than 10% of the salary cap.
Personally I wouldn't want him. My suspicion is that the NZ link may see us getting a lock, although there are four Springboks I can think of that would be welcome at Quins - any one of Etzebeth, du Toit, de Jager or Snyman would be an excellent signing.
And the England hooker bloke and that Russian sounding one, 7th & 8th
Fissler seems to think him joining us is a load of rubbish. That could work either way
Fissler seems to think him joining us is a load of rubbish. That could work either way
Fissler does seem to be more miss than hit at the moment, seems he is competing with Rugby Inside Line for most speculated rumours although on this one he is probably correct.
I find some of the back and forth between the two quite funny tbh. to be fair, they do both get some right, but also sometimes they are way off the mark
Agree x 1
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